The Boy in the Suitcase (A Nina Borg Novel)

Say what you will about Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I was a fan on the whole), but one of the most important things about the series for readers was the way it clued in the rest of the world to the growing Nordic noir movement. Bleak, morally complex, diving deeply into political and gender issues, and ripping off the outwardly placid faces of their countries to expose the dark deeds underneath, it's a genre that I'm glad finally made its way overseas, giving us the chance to see how other countries take on a genre that's so familiar to us.Take The Boy in the Suitcase, by Agnete Friis and Lene Kaaberbøl, which introduces the character of Nina Borg, who the two women have gone on to write a number of books about. (Separately, Friis is a journalist and Kaaberbøl is a children's author.) The Boy in the Suitcase opens with its titular image, as Borg opens a suitcase she's retrieved from an airport, only to find a three-year-old boy shoved unconscious and left there. How he got there - and why - is the subject of the book, which immediately backtracks, following the boy's mother, the kidnapper, the man who ordered the kidnapping, and Borg, watching as each thread plays out and giving us bits of the story along the way, carefully doling out each revelation when it'll have the most impact.As you might guess from that opening image, The Boy in the Suitcase is harrowing and intense, and that's not even getting into the way the book looks at the treatment of immigrants, misogyny, abused women, and more, weaving all of these themes into the book carefully while never getting too far away from its story. And while it becomes clear that this isn't a traditional child trafficking situation (thankfully), Kaaberbøl and Friis draw no small amount of suspense (and unease) from the questions about what the purpose is in abducting this child, leaving the actual answer - which is horrifying and yet completely logical, within the framework of the novel - until right near the end.All of which makes this sound more like a traditional mystery than it is. Indeed, Friis and Kaaberbøl play this out unusually, keeping almost all of their threads separate until the novel's very end, never giving you the moment you'd expect where the "heroes" come together and trade information. The mother is constantly uncertain if her child is even alive; Nina has the child but doesn't even know his name; the kidnapper can't figure out where the child is or who has him; and the man behind it all is only aware that everything has gone wrong but doesn't know how. It's a book that unfolds in an incredibly odd style, with revelations coming but often not affecting the story, and so many main characters that it sometimes feels rushed when it comes to developing them.Indeed, for a book that's nominally the first in the "Nina Borg" series, Nina herself feels like just one small piece of the novel. She's a compelling character, mind you, one whose experiences working with refugees and abused women have left her damaged and unable to cope with regular life, often going absurd lengths - and abandoning her family - to take on causes. That's an interesting hook for a character, giving Nina a blend of "dedicated knight" and "damaged hero" that we don't often get in female characters - in America, she's be the "cop who works too hard and can't leave the case at work." But here, Nina is a social worker whose experiences have left such a mark on her that she refuses to accept injustice, and often can't be a wife, a mother, or even an individual person - an interesting idea for a hero.The Boy in the Suitcase is a riveting read, but it's an odd one, and not entirely satisfying; it feels so unusually constructed that you feel like the story is unfolding more for the reader than the characters, with none of them truly able to change or react to the situations. But none of that will make you able to put it down as Kaaberbøl and Friis turn the screws constantly, ratcheting up the tension and leaving you uneasy as to the fate not only of this child, but also of the various players in this disappearance. It's a great window into Nordic noir, though, and makes me curious to see what else the genre holds, to see if it's all this different, compelling, and rich.

This ‘unputdownable’ novel captures you until it’s ending. Twists and turns and fear for the characters are more than spellbinding

The Boy in the Suitcase is a crime mystery set mostly in Denmark. The opening chapter has the heroine of a series of these books go to the train station to retrieve a suitcase for a friend of hers. When she opens the suitcase, she finds a naked, drugged, three year old boy in there. And from there, we are off on an adventure of figuring out who the child is, where he came from, and why was he in the suitcase in the first place. The main background theme of this book, in my opinion, are the relationships of four couples with their desires for children. We read about Nina Borg and her relationships with her two children and husbad; Jan and Anne Marquat and their son; and Janucs and Barbara and their desire for a life for themselves and children; and finally Sigita and Darius and their convoluted relationship.As the story goes along we read of each of the couples and their desires for children and what it means to them. The books is structure with each short chapter taking a look at one of the couples in either the current time, or in the past, to give the reader some sense of how all these characters happen to come together in this story. This can be somewhat confusing in the beginning of the book as each chapter bounces around to someone else, but eventually the reader gets enough of the back story to start making sense of it all and at that point the chapters focus on the current events - from the viewpoint of each different protagonist. While I, as the reader, formed some opinions about the characters and what they were doing throughout the book, I was taken by surprise by some plot twists that were introduced. Without giving these major plot twists away, there is one in the middle of the book, and another towards the far end which really make the whole story come together in a way that makes sense. By the end of the book, everything comes together in a coherent whole and when things get resolved, they are resolved in a way that makes sense. The bad guy, or guys, get their due, and we find out not only who the boy in the suitcase is, but why he was there. There is a small epilogue in which it is clear that Nina Borg is the hero of a series of stories and sets the stage for other such stories in the future.I found this book to be an interesting read. It is written by two female writers so perhaps that explains why it appears that most of the story is told from the women's point of view while the males are mere cartoonish characters. Nonetheless, the story holds together and the way the plot evolves and gets resolved makes sense for the most part. The writing is engaging and it's a book that - once you get going in it - you will want to finish just to see how it ends. One of the interesting things for me was that it was set amongst various European countries and cultures from Denmark to Lithuania with a bit of Polish thrown in to boot. While the cultural differences did not come into play, there were some comments about the different lifestyles and how the Westerners and Easterners reacted to it all. This is a good book and deserves a four star rating , which is what I am giving it.

This thriller works not least because of the striking immediacy and relevance of the issues raised. The writing is spare and the characterisation more sophisticated than many other novels of the genre. We are not in a simple world of 'baddies' and 'goodies', but rather in modern, civilised Scandinavia where cultures, expectations, hopes and fears clash, overlap, run parallel and all too often destroy those caught up in the rapidly unravelling events.

Great service, haven't finished book

I couldn't put this book down. Well written/translated too. A gripping story with a surprising story told in a very effective way. I'm already reading the next book from this pair and am enjoying it very much.

A child is abducted abs the due, but is rescued off sorts by Nina who decides to go to the police and then changes her mind. An enjoyable read that perhaps loses something in translation.

This book had my heart in my throat for much of the read. It was a little confusing in the beginning and took some time to sort the various characters out, but I was rooting for the goodies and hating the baddies very quickly. The pace is very fast and I found myself breathlessly waiting for the outcome of each step in the action. Definitely worth reading.